Stephano takes main North American Star League Starcraft II competition, Scarlett's to lead Team Canada into Blizzard World Championships, MonoManiacs ski to the top on Tribes: Ascend.

The conclusion of season 3 of the North American Star League wrapped up this weekend in Toronto to a raucous crowd which had long awaited a major eSports event in Canada. Three champions were crowned at the end of the weekend for the main Starcraft II event, Blizzard's World Championship Series Canadian finals, and the Tribes: Ascend Finals.

Stephano celebrates his NASL Season 3 Starcraft II win.

Team Millenium's Ilyes "Stephano" Satouri from France won the main Starcraft II event and a $30,000 check with it, sweeping Team Slayers' Yang "Alicia" Joon Sik from South Korea in the finals 4-0. Stephano's Zerg timing and control took out three of the best Korean Protoss players in the world, including Team Liquid's Song "HerO" Hyeon Deok and SK Gaming's Jang "MC" Min Chul. Meanwhile, top PC first-person shooter players put on a skiing display in Tribes as Team MonoManiacs squeaked by Team Legion 3-2 to take the Tribes: Ascend trophy.

Finally, Team Acer's Sasha "Scarlett" Hostyn won over the crowd by taking out four of the best Canadian Starcraft II players in a row, starting with Evil Geniuses' Chris "HuK" Loranger. She went on to defeat Christopher "Ostojiy" Ostojic, Andrew "Drewbie" Moysey, Moon "DdoRo" Jung Ho, and Ostojiy a second time in the grand finals, only losing one map the entire event. She will now lead team Canada at the Blizzard World Championships in China later this year.

"I was really confident [going into this event]" Scarlett told GameSpot after her victory. "I was most worried about Ostojiy, I always beat HuK on the ladder recently, but Ostojiy I always lose to. When I played him the first time I thought I might lose. The first game I got way ahead but then I lost to a Nydus Worm, I thought I would lose the series, but then I barely won. I got more confident after that so when I played him in the grand finals again I thought I could easily win."

Scarlett made a name for herself at the IGN ProLeague Season 4 finals where she defeated Evil Geniuses' Benjamin "DeMusliM" Baker and lost a close series to November GSL 2011 Code S semifinalist, Fnatic's Kim "Oz" Hak Soo from Korea. She took out some of Team SCV Life's best players earlier this month in anticipation of the display she put on this weekend.

"All the Canadian players knew they were going to lose to Scarlett and were pretty open about it", says James "Kennigit" Lampkin, Marketing Manager of TeamLiquid, born and raised in Ottawa. "Except Huk, of course. He didn't think he'd lose".

Stephano's win this weekend was a big statement for the Western Starcraft community, which marked its third major victory in the past month. That string of success was started by Polish stars' Team Mousesports' Grzegorz "MaNa" Komincz winning DreamHack Summer 2012, and Scarlett's teammate Artur "Nerchio" Bloch taking home the fifth HomeStoryCup. Stephano will use the win going into this weekend's MLG Summer Arena.

"Winning a tournament doesn't really boost my confidence, because everybody will expect me to do good so everyone will be playing better against me," Stephano told GameSpot. "But I think this tournament has been good practice for me as I haven't been able to do it the past days, so I think I could do it."

Stephano has mentioned his lack of practice before major events in previous interviews. Some have speculated on whether this is just part of Stephano's projected aura in the community, but it's definitely working.

"The most interesting part about Stephano's performance is that for two days he was basically chilling--watching French TV shows, playing off-race matches, UMS maps," said Lampkin, who was on-hand at NASL this weekend. "He would have you believe that he isn't practicing, but his play is simply too clean for him not to be doing a couple hundred practice games in the week leading up to the event. The most stressed I saw him during play days was looking for a pack of Sun Chips."

NASL President Russell Pfister said the event was a success, and that the fourth season will start in September, with the finals event in December. A King of the Hill series is set to begin in just a few weeks, and finals will start in December. Although no location was given for the finals, Canadian fans would welcome NASL back with open arms, Pfister said. "I think we hit this one out of the park," said Pfister. "The Canadian fans made that all possible. We wanted to come to Toronto just on our viewership because we knew Toronto loves to watch us and they actually love to come in-person and watch us too."

This article should be amended to correct some inaccuracy. Scarlett doesn't get a direct seed to the WCS Championship, she only gets to the North American Championship. The Canadian tournament didn't offer any direct seeds as prizes.

This is not a real sport, just a hobbie/competition. Sports, like soccer, require you to do something physical like running. Soccer is a hundred times more of a sport than this; which has you sit on your butt all day clicking a button.

every game ever made was set to test something either it's how fast you run, swim. shoot. or can you do it in this set of time. or can you do this challege.

which makes it competitive between said number of people.

so either you're really ignorant. but like it or not E-sport. is upon the risen.

and will get much bigger with time. as soon as more people will understand.

that gaming isn't "just a waste of time". cause with more gamers to understand that fact there will be way more compenies that will accept this transition of gaming for being a casual thing people do in thier free time. and will become more accpted as a job opportunity.

same as when people watch football. and say "oh man that player is a god".

it not suppost to be the same type of game. physical or mental.

but it all about the CHALLENGE, SKILL and EFFORT that was put in to achieve that level of game play ability. whether it's on the field or in online video game.

p.s. maybe people that visit gamespot all they care about is when the wii-u will come out and play with thier 2yr son. or someone that didn't get to experiance what a competitive play scene. in that case. why did you visit a post that talks about it. feel free to move about your day sir. unless you're just want to feel better about youself for 10secs bushing others for thier achievements.

All the haters are either trolls, which is admirable, or the lowest rung of sad, sad human beings, so obstinate in their tiny little worlds of self-centered delusions that one may only reasonably react with pity.

Some suggestions for Slasher. For a person like me who follows the scene, I know what and who you're talking about. But for the many noobs at GameSpot, you might want to break it down a bit more instead of spamming X player won X tournament.

Talk about the history, elaborate on the story-lines, and conclude with what this means for the player . I don't know if GameSpot allows you to do this but how about linking profiles from Liquidpedia to the players? A gallery of pictures that can capture the atmosphere would also be nice for noobs.

Great article and well done Canada, you did yourself proud. I could feel the energy of the venue on the live stream even at 4am! Great atmosphere! Also congrats to Stephano, another major to add to his growing list after IPL 3 I believe? However, to throw some critique at NASL, the map pool way DIRE, having belshire and duel sight! Gotta respect someone who's an athlete like that, a true champ. Maybe a top 4 GSL finish in the future before he goes to med school? Maybe we'll see. Baller event and a great champ.

Are you people serious???? Congrats to Stephano! Its a competition... and people are bashing it cause its a game. Oh Im sorry, because it isnt Kobe, Or Manning, or Johnson, Or Kemp playing doesnt mean its fucking invalid. NASL was an amazing Tournamnet. ANY FORM of competition, with the best of the best playing is AWESOME to watch! And all the haters saying they wont amount to anything.. The winner is just about is in college studied to be a MD Doctor. SO yeah.. And so the fuck what if someone died playing diablo afer 40 hours. THAT is someone being ignorant, and irresponisble. If somone OD'ed on steroids as a pro football player, doesnt mean its inappropriate to write an article about the NCAA football championship. Congrats to Stephano go to Mill. GO FORGG!!!!

Well written article, Slasher delivers once more! As for the haters, well I don't really understand why do you HAVE to read about something you do not like, you are either really bad trolls or just someone that has nothing better to do than get upset about what some random french dude is doing.

I wonder if you "haters" would make such an effort to comment on sites concering sports you don't enjoy. If you don't want to read about it, then don't. Just navigate to the relevant part of the site that you're interested in, jeez

@EdmasterC03 The problem here seems to be, that you are just not good with words or have no idea what these players do. When simplifying like you do, one could say: "all a soccer player does is running around, kicking a ball." and we know that is just as much not true as saying starcaft players click a button all day.

@blindfotwonine Well people have the right to find it ridiculous but it's just weird they take time to comment on something they hate or don't care about. I don't go around on football websites saying " lol what a shitty sport people enjoy watching 22 guys in shorts kicking a ball get a life "

@darkmakyua I understand where you're coming from now, but I think you're problem is one of ignorance rather than what I initially thought.

These players are professionals, this is their job. They plan out reasonable times to train and take breaks to cool down, they're not really "addicted" to the game, they just play it at an extraordinarily high level.

@darkmakyua Those guys are actually real professional players with a coach, daily routine, strict practice schedules etc, they're not each in their bedrooms playing 18h straight just for the sake of it =)

@darkmakyua@WilliamCPrice Stephano is definitely not one of these people. And Starcraft II is a game where it is very grueling to play hours on end, not addicting. Trust me, I'm a pretty high level player in the top 0.1% in North America. Nowhere near Stephano's or anyone in that tournaments skill level.